Zeolites are beneficial for numerous industrial applications such as catalysis, ion-exchange, and adsorption. The economic and environmental disadvantages of using organic structure-directing agents (OSDAs) in the preparation of commercial zeolites have motivated research for viable alternatives. Many OSDAs employed in zeolite synthesis are either expensive or not commercially available, and also require post-synthesis calcination to remove organic molecules occluded within zeolite pores a process that negates recycling of organics. The drawbacks of OSDA-free synthesis, however, are the prohibitively small range of zeolite Si/Al ratio (SAR) and the propensity for polymorphism (i.e., the formation of crystal impurities). Moreover, only less than 15% of the total reported zeolite framework types have been prepared without the use of OSDAs. Therefore, the ability to prepare zeolites with desired physicochemical properties in the absence of organics is challenging, but has significant promise for commercial realization. Hence, there exists a need in the art to develop methods of synthesizing zeolites without the use of complex and costly OSDAs.